Oh, and by the way, please note that 2013 was the hottest year Australia has ever endured, since records began.

Begins …

Air temperatures varied by more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit across the United States Monday morning. A blast of Arctic air pushing south as far as Atlanta has caused air temperatures across the United States to plunge, creating a massive 140-degree Fahrenheit (77 degrees Celsius) temperature difference between the chilly Dakotas and balmy Florida yesterday (Jan. 5).

The pulse of frigid air, called a polar vortex, whirled into the United States this weekend on the heels of a major winter storm. But unlike that storm, the polar vortex won’t bring heavy snowfall. (The snowstorm dropped nearly 2 feet, or 60 centimeters, of snow in Boston last week.) Instead, the National Weather Service is forecasting dangerous cold and wind-chills. The cold temperatures are expected to last through Wednesday.

The polar vortex is a low-pressure system that circulates from west to east in the Arctic during winter. Late last week, a high-pressure system — called an atmospheric block — situated over northeastern Canada and Greenland stopped this circulation pattern, pushing the cold air into the United States. On Sunday afternoon, temperatures ranged from minus 55 F to 85 F (minus 48 C to 29 C).

On Monday morning, air temperatures in North Dakota and South Florida were still more than 100 F apart. Chicago set a new record low of minus 16 F (minus 27 C) Monday morning, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, broke a 102-year record with a new low of minus 1 F (minus 18 C) recorded at 7:14 a.m. local time, the NWS said.

Climate change scientists labour to explain to skeptics that global warming can produce extremes of cold, wind and rain as well as hotter zones. For some reason, this simple fact seems to elude numbers of climate change deniers … many of whom are funded by high polluting industries, such as oil, coal, and others. Other blogs such as the Raw Story have noticed what looks awfully like a co-ordinated conservative howl of trolling on the topic.